DUBLIN, Ireland, Nov. 24 — As we go to press, the Irish government is preparing to formally release today its four-year plan to make the poor and working class pay for the ongoing economic crisis through austerity.

Ireland’s crisis began earlier this month, when a commission from the European Union visited Dublin, and met with representatives of Prime Minister Brian Cowen’s government, major opposition parties, business groups and the main labor union federation.

The head of the EU delegation gave his support to Cowan’s initial austerity plan, which called for €6 billion (about $8 billion) in cuts next year as part of an overall plan to reduce deficits to 3 percent of GDP by 2014.

Ireland had already cut spending by €14 billion since 2008, and had planned to cut another €15 billion in the next four years. However, the EU advised Ireland’s government that it might have to “re-evaluate” that amount — a not-so-subtle hint to Dublin to consider harsher austerity measures to meet the demands of the Eurozone ruling classes.

All the major parties in the Dáil (parliament) have pledged support for austerity, from the ruling Fianna Fáil to the now-former ruling partner Green Party to the opposition Fine Gael and Labour Party — differing only over how much austerity to impose.

The Irish Congress of Trade Unions, the main union federation, has called for a day of protest on Saturday, Nov. 28. This Dublin protest is meant as a pressure valve, to vent off enough anger and outrage from the Irish working class to keep it from engaging in “significant civil unrest” that might possibly disrupt the ability of the Irish ruling classes to extract surplus value (profit) from workers.

The Irish capitalists and their “middle class” managers are expecting to reap billions in euros as a result of the austerity plan. While poor and working people will be paying the bill for the bailout, through mass layoffs (up to 20,000 in the public and health sectors; tens of thousands more in related industries), wage freezes and reductions (including a reduction in the minimum wage), higher consumption and income taxes, as well as the elimination of various tax breaks, the wealthy will continue to enjoy their 12.5-percent corporate tax rate (the lowest in Europe), will face no rise in their personal income tax, and will have €15 billion pumped into the banks, and thus into the financial (credit) system.

Ireland’s population is 4.5 million. Layoffs of 20,000 Irish workers, after having already sacked more than 12,000 workers in the public sector since 2008, would be equivalent to idling more than 1.3 million U.S. workers, on top of having already laid off another 900,000 over the two years previous.

With Ireland’s “official” unemployment hovering above 13 percent (and the real number closer to 20 percent), and major cuts already proposed to unemployment insurance, the strain on Irish workers will be crushing.

The EU bailout of Ireland, facilitated by the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank, is the second one of a member state this year. In May, Greece took a €110 billion bailout from the ECB and IMF (the same amount being given to Ireland) and the imposed a similar austerity plan.

At the time, EU officials stated their belief that no other EU member would need a bailout. But then Ireland was pushing into insolvency by financial speculators and forced by those countries heavily invested there to appeal to the EU for a bailout. There is talk that similar measures may need to be imposed on other EU states, like Portugal.

It is clear that the imposition of austerity as a means of breaking the back of the working class has become a central tool of the ruling classes, not only in Europe but also in the U.S. and other countries. A united working-class response is needed to fight this drive of the world’s ruling classes. That begins with building international unity and organization.